Easy, peasy, that’s what these are! If you have over-ripe bananas, in under 30 minutes you can have a rack of delicious banana muffins!

I began freezing over-ripe bananas a while ago. It was a revelation to me that you could just throw whole bananas in the freezer! The bananas do defrost to a gross mush but that just makes mashing them easier. I was looking in the freezer recently and found frozen bananas all over the place! Turns out I had 19 frozen bananas! I defrosted 3 bananas out to make my usual banana bread only to discover I had no butter!  I’m a fan of baking with oil rather than butter as it adds a great texture so I thought Id try replacing the butter with olive oil.  As I was changing things I thought Id try muffins rather than a loaf.

These banana olive oil muffins are a great alternative to banana bread. Using oil rather than butter worked so well I will stick to that! They are quicker to cook than a loaf and are easily portable in their own cases, making a great lunch box addition. They are also really versatile, I think I will add raisins next time. What do you like in your banana muffin?

Banana Olive Oil Muffins

ingredients

• 150 grams plain flour
• 100 grams caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 3 bananas, mashed
• 1 egg, beaten
• 80 ml olive oil

method

1. Preheat the oven to 190 C, 375 F, Gas 5. Line a muffin pan with paper liners. A fairy cake pan works too!
2. In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients, ( flour, sugar, soda, cinnamon).
3. Combine the beaten egg, mashed bananas and olive oil, fold into the dry ingredients until just combined.
4. Fill each paper liner about half full and bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.
5. Cool on a wire rack, store in an airtight tin.